Americans Shifting Blame

From The Hill comes this good news: “Two-thirds of likely voters say the weak economy is Washington’s fault, and more blame President Obama than anybody else, according to a new poll for The Hill.”

Finally! Maybe Americans have awakened to the fact that most of Bush’s presidency was a time of improving economics. Americans and the media forget or conveniently forget that when Bush took office he was handed a poor economy from the dot.com bubble.

Bush was getting us out of that morass and then 9/11 came along and dealt a severe blow to us. We had been underfunded at the Defense Department and had to put together a campaign from the leftover bits Clinton left them. Still, the economy improved, reaching a 7.8 GDP in one of the quarters.

It wasn’t until the Democrats took the House that things began to go wrong. First, Nancy Pelosi pushed through a raise in the minimum wage. Sounds good, but the result was many businesses had to stop hiring people, especially young people.

Then, Bush asked Congress five times to take a look at Fanny and Freddie. The Dems wouldn’t. Barney Frank assured us they were OK. Every time Bush pressed, they pushed back and nothing was done at a time when some of the damage could have been avoided.

The Hill has more:

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.

Obama has argued throughout the presidential campaign that his policies have made the economy better. He says recovery is taking a long time because he inherited such deep economic trouble upon taking office in 2009.

“The problems we’re facing right now have been more than a decade in the making,” he told an audience last month in Cleveland.

We’re not a society known for our patience. I think it has finally worn out.

And Obama wants us to worry about Romney’s success? Would he have preferred he failed?